10 Things You Didn’t Know About Caddyshack

From “chinch bugs” to his infamous “Cinderella story” rant, Murray was given minimal direction from Ramis in his short time on set and improvised through every scene. His grumbling groundskeeper character, Carl Spackler, was originally written as mute in order to pay homage to the Marx Brothers, but after Murray arrived on set, Ramis quickly changed his mind.

Despite making countless appearances on some of the era’s biggest talk shows, including The Ed Sullivan Show, Dangerfield was said to have felt out of his element on the set of Caddyshack. After acknowledging Dangerfield’s first time jitters (Al Czervik was the comedian’s first major film role), Ramis and the producers inquired about what was going through his head. Dangerfieldallegedly admitted he felt inadequate because no one was laughing at his jokes. Ramis and his team had to explain to him they wanted to laugh, but if they did, every take would have been ruined.

Many comedy fans are aware of the long-standing feud between Chase and Murray, who first had their differences back in 1975 during their time onSaturday Night Live. But after seeing their buddy-buddy rapport in Caddyshack, audiences assumed the two had buried the hatchet. This wasn’t necessarily the case, as Murray only spent a total of six days on set, effectively avoiding as much time with Chase as possible.

The idea for the film was a last resort pitch to Orion Pictures, who were convinced after Ramis, Brian Doyle-Murray, and Douglas Kenney pitched “Animal House on a golf course.” The script came about from their experiences (plus Bill Murray’s) as former country club caddies.

The actress was reportedly so uncomfortable with the idea of a nude scene, she threatened not to do it. Producer Jon Peters, however, bullied Morgan into thinking if she didn’t take off her top, she’d never work again. To make matters worse, Peters wanted to have a photographer from Playboy come on set during the particular scene in hopes shots of Morgan would help promote the movie. The shoot never did end up happening and Morgan went on to star in Tronshortly after Caddyshack, but after that, the actress got stuck in a seemingly never-ending cycle of TV movies.

After his role in Caddyshack as uptight country club owner, Judge Elihu Smails, the television star stuck to the tube for The Love Boat and Too Close for Comfortbefore passing away in 1986.

Ramis and his team has so much excess footage (over four hours-worth, in fact) but, oddly enough, no ties between Murray’s plans to destroy an evil gopher and an actual gopher. They added in the furry star, shot all of his footage on a separate soundstage, and incorporated him into the grand explosion at the end.

Bill Murray and his five brothers opened a Caddyshack-themed restaurant at World Golf Village in St. Augustine, Florida. The movie was filmed primarily in Boca Raton to avoid hovering studio executives in Los Angeles, so the Murray Brothers wanted to keep with the Floridian theme.

The actress who played Danny’s (Michael O’Keefe) girlfriend in the film, also appeared in Animal House as Pinto’s (very) underage date. But after her role inCaddyshack, Holcomb said goodbye to acting for good.

Douglas Kenney was allegedly inspired by zen philosophy at the time of filming and encouraged both Chase’s “Be the ball” and his infamous putting scenes to derive from a place of zen. The writer-producer was obsessed with Robert M. Pirsig’s 1974 best-seller Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and suggested Chase incorporate zen sounds into those particular moments of production, effectively giving way to the memorable “na-na-na-na-na,” featured above.

Source: Decider.com